An item noted by Susannah Tredewell on the VALL website, CANSIM data has been made available free of charge by StatsCan under the Statistics Canada Open Licence Agreement.

CANSIM is Statistics Canada’s key socioeconomic database, receives periodic updates daily to its various tables, and “provides fast and easy access to a large range of the latest statistics available in Canada.”

They’ve also added a screencast video tutorial, which would have been a nice addition to the 4 videos StatsCan currently has on its Youtube channel. It seems rather odd, I must say, when an organization’s youtube channel . . . [more]

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is accepting nominations for this year’s Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

It honours a publisher (whether for-profit or not-for profit, corporate or non-corporate) that has demonstrated excellence by publishing a work, series, website or e-product that makes a significant contribution to legal research and scholarship.

Slaw.ca won the award in 2009 (yay team!).

Members as well as non-members of CALL can make nominations. Criteria are explained on the Award website (see link in first sentence).

Members of the Award Selection Committee set up to choose the lucky winner are: . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 57 comments. You might be particularly interested in these:

• The 8 comments on Edward Prutschi’s post, “Crime & Punishment in 2012”
• The erudite, not to say abstruse, renewed comments on Shaunna Mireau’s post, “Queen’s Counsel Appointments”

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and comments (RSS, email).

2. SlawTips

This week’s tips on SlawTips are:

• Tuesday:

An interesting decision came out in the twilight of 2011. The Vancouver Sun v. British Columbia, 2011 BCSC 1736 is worth a look not only because it is the first of what is likely to be many cases adjudicating fallout from last year’s Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, but also for its utilization of production orders to get useful information from third parties unrelated to the criminal events under investigation. As upcoming lawful access legislation is expected to create a number of new production orders (largely focused on acquiring telecommunications data from third parties), this case may provide a window . . . [more]

Slaw is pleased to let you know that three new columnists have joined us. They’ll be coming on line over the course of the next months, in the order in which their brief bios appear here:

Kevin O’Keefe, as you’ll likely know, is the CEO and founder of LexBlog. He was a trial lawyer in Wisconsin for 17 years and remains a sustaining member of the the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and he has served as a vice president of business development for Martindale-Hubbell. LexBlog is that mighty platform that enables thousands of lawyers in the US . . . [more]

This morning in a brief decision Canada’s top court ruled in a Reference that Internet service providers are not bound by the CRTC’s broadcast regulations

The judgment is so brief we quote it in full: . . . [more]

At a press conference on February 6, 2012, Steve Woodworth, backbench Conservative MP for Kitchener Centre stated that he tabled a motion in Parliament calling for the creation of a special committee to study medical and scientific evidence about when a child can be considered a human being separate from the mother. He also wants that committee to examine the legal impact of denying full human rights to an unborn child and provide options to update the law.

Woodworth expects his motion to get an hour of debate in March and another hour in June.

As stated in my previous . . . [more]

John is bored. His firm just hasn’t been busy this month and instead of the usual big transaction work all he has are small bits and pieces of corporate matters. Even though none of it is complicated he just can’t get down to doing any of it and is wasting time surfing the net instead.

Terry is deadline driven. Every day is about putting out fires and meeting last minute deadlines. He knows he should plan ahead and get to his projects done before the last minute but he has gotten use to the adrenaline rush and just can’t get . . . [more]

Here is what Justice Corbett of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had to say recently in Sri Guru Nanak Sikh Centre Brampton v. Dhadda,

[1] It is not open to anyone involved in the plaintiff to dispense with the law because they think they are wise and know what is best. “Tradition” is not a basis for ignoring the law.

…

[4] The plaintiff has a long sad history of conflict. And this just has to stop. It is an embarrassment: the plaintiff is an important religious, social and cultural institution. The conflicts have been riotous, often petty,

A little while ago I blogged about legal bibliographies and highlighted some of the work that John Eaton at the University of Manitoba has done in this area. It is very nice to see that John’s work has been recognised as he is the 2012 recipient of the Association of College and Research Libraries Marta Lange/CQ Press Award. This award recognises librarians who have made a significant contribution to bibliography and information service in law or political science. The press release from the American Library Association announcing the award can be found here.

Congratulations John! . . . [more]

As Connie mentioned, our firm launched a new website last week. In this post, I’ll share a few thoughts about the process of creating a new law firm website.

Lawyers tend to be a conservative lot, tend to set a low priority on things that don’t bring short term gain, and tend to want to be in control. That combination doesn’t lend itself well to creating a new website that may be somewhat different. It can lead to analysis paralysis, or a conservative approach that leads to either no new site at all, or one that tries to satisfy . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of February 1 – 7.

♨ 1. Reece v. Rumney et al 2012 ONSC 780

[1] This is a motion by the Plaintiff for an Order setting aside the verdict of the jury delivered on December 8, 2011 on the basis that there was no evidence to support the jury’s findings and for an Order that:

(a) the action be retried with another jury; or

(b) a verdict be delivered by the trial judge (the plaintiff acknowledged at the motion that this likely was not a realistic solution).